Exemplification Essay: The Role Of Concussions In Sports

Sports play a huge role in the lives of many. For some, being involved in a sport can be a gateway to better opportunities in the form of being scouted and receiving a scholarship to a prestigious university. Others may see sports as a way to bond with friends and family. Being able to pick a team to root for and being a genuine fan can bring a sense of unity to a household. But like most things in life, there are potential drawbacks. In this case, said drawbacks could come in the form of a concussion, which ranks amongst the top ten most common sports related injuries. Although seen as a fun career or hobby, there are always dangers lingering around one wrong blow to the head.
Concussions are a result of violent slamming of the head into an object or contact with another person. These collisions cause the brain to shake violently inside the skull and can lead to neurological damage. They range from three different types of grades. Grade one involves feeling ill for less than thirty

minutes with no loss of consciousness, grade two includes loss of consciousness and nausea that can last up to twenty four hours, and grade three, the most serious which can produce a twenty four hour loss of consciousness. Once a person suffers a concussion, they become more likely to potentially have another in the future. If one is exposed to multiple concussions the brain will begin to function erratically due to the nerve and blood vessel damage that has been done. Athletes are prone to concussions since they are constantly on the field making physical contact with other players. Lawrence Chin, a professor and chair board member of neurosurgery at State University of New York Upstate Medical University, writes in his journal, Sports Medicine: Concussions in Sports, “An estimated 10% of head and spinal cord injuries are due to sports-related activities. As the popularity of sports increases so does the incidence of sports-related injuries” (Chin). While most concussions can be treated and healed within weeks, there are various cases where athletes have had to give up the sport to prevent further large-scale brain damage. An untreated concussion could develop into chronic traumatic encephalopathy which is the deterioration of the brain over a period of time, and unlike concussions CTE cannot be diagnosed until after death. CTE is commonly found in those who participate in professional sports such as football, hockey, wrestling and other high impact sports.
There are many people who would classify wrestling as a “fake” sport. This criticism comes from those who put the work done by athletes employed by the World Wrestling Entertainment under a microscope. While the storylines the athletes perform may be scripted, the physical action is far too real and so are the consequences. For a long time, chair shots to the head were all the rage in the WWE. That all changed in 2010 when the maneuver was permanently banned in the company’s hopes to ensure their Talent Wellness Program be taken as seriously as possible. The company received positive feedback from fans and former employees, but some felt the motion should have come sooner in order to prevent a travesty that occurred in 2007. Chris Benoit performed a series of daredevil stunts during his lengthy wrestling career. Time eventually caught up with him and all those moves took a toll on both his physical and mental state. He received numerous chair shots to the head throughout his career, which would be the catalyst to his extensive brain trauma caused by untreated concussions. On June 25, 2007, Benoit’s wife and son were found murdered in their home in Fayetteville, Georgia. Both had been drugged and strangled by Benoit, who later hung himself using a weight machine in his basement. After the horrific discoveries were made, several tests were done on Benoit’s brain in order to find an answer. It would later be confirmed that he showed positive signs of CTE. Dr. Julian Bailes, co-director of the North Shore Neurological Institute, informed ABC News reporter Roxanna Sherwood that he performed a test which resulted in him stating that "Benoit's brain was so severely damaged it resembled the brain of an 85-year-old Alzheimer's patient" (Sherwood).
It was not long after the incident that WWE completely erased Benoit from their record books, leaving no trace of his legacy behind in order to separate themselves from the crime.

Though many see this as a tragic timeline of events, and rightfully so, it did cause WWE to really buckle down when it came to protecting their employees from that point on. The wrestling company paired up with ImPACT Concussion Management Program in 2010 and now performs rigorous screenings. The company’s concussion guidelines state, “If a WWE Talent show symptoms of a concussion or has suffered a concussion, then that WWE Talent will not be cleared to return to wrestling until he/she passes an ImPACT test and is clinically cleared by a certified physician.” No less than two weeks ago, Daniel Bryan, a veteran wrestler, had to permanently retire from in-ring work after doctors discovered he was suffering from a series of seizures caused by concussions. Like Benoit, Bryan also began to show signs of

CTE.
While three percent of concussion rates stem from wrestling alone, it is still considered to be safer than football, which is responsible for an enormous thirty seven percent. The National Football League has come under scrutiny time and time again over there concussion guidelines and protocol. Players who show symptoms of a concussion are usually sent back into games after a brief period of time, which can be harmful. PBS’s Jason M. Breslow recently spoke with the Department of Veteran Affairs and Boston University about their current project, examining the brains of deceased NFL players for possible signs of CTE. Currently, eighty seven of the brains that have undergone testing have tested positive for brain damage which could have also lead to dementia and depression. Breslow wrote, “Forty percent of those who tested positive were the offensive and defensive linemen who come into contact with one another on every play of a game” (Breslow). In the past, the idea that small punts to the head every game can have just as much or more damage to the brain than big one-time collisions. This was the case for Pittsburgh Steelers center, Mike Webster. Webster’s death at age fifty prompted a lot of questions from the public and doctors alike. Dr. Bennet Omalu was handed Webster’s case and was puzzled by his brain slides. Dr. Omalu told PBS, “I saw changes that shouldn’t be in a 50-year-old man’s brains, and also changes that shouldn’t be in a brain that looked normal” (Breslow). It is highly speculated that years of blunt force trauma to the head caused Webster’s brain deterioration. These findings made a gigantic impact in professional football, as they were the first to ever mention something as serious as CTE. Today, the NFL has taken a series of steps to reduce concussions by expanding their resources. Although they are trying to implement new rules and regulations, concussion rates were recently revealed to have risen by fifty eight percent which is the highest spike in the last four years.